Water supply for subscribers in the Capital Secretariat of Sana’a has decreased by 30-40 % as a result of a stop of more than 85 water pumps due to electric blackouts. Pumps stop working between 7-10 hours per day.  If the situation were to continue, every neighborhood would get water once every 8-9 days, said a source at the Public Corporation for Water and Sanitation. 

The Corporation is working hard to reduce this problem that represents more than 22 thousand cubic meter of water daily. The issue of water shortage in Sana’a in particular has worsened in the past few years due to several factors, the most important of which is groundwater depletion as a result of incorrect irrigation methods and qat growing.

Official statistics show that only 50 percent of Sana’a’s population, 2 million people, can be supplied with water. Just under 50 percent of people living in other Yemeni governorates can get clean drinking water. However, houses in many areas of Yemen are not originally provided with water supply service. In addition, some studies estimate that the stored water of Sana’a governorate will be exhausted in the next 10 to 15 years.  

 The World Health Organization (WHO) also highlights the health consequences of water scarcity, such as diarrheal diseases including cholera, typhoid fever and salmonellosis. Lack of potable water is also a common cause of food poisoning, other gastrointestinal viruses and dysentery.   

There are no rivers flowing across the country to supply the nation with its water requirements, so Yemen depends completely on rainfall and groundwater. According to statistics, the annual rainfall in the middle of the country ranges from 400 to 1,100 millimeters while it reaches just 100 mm in the coastal areas. Moreover, the whole country depends on around 45,000 wells which quickly dry up.  

Yemen’s Strategic Vision 2025, recently issued by the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, estimates that the groundwater stored in all basins located in the different governorates amounts to 20 billion cubic meters. It is also estimates that Yemen will exhaust around 12 billion cubic meters from the present time until 2010, so the stored groundwater reserves will not prove sufficient for many more years.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report shows that the average annual amount of renewed waters per Yemeni amounts to just 125 cubic meters. That means that each individual in Yemen consumes just 10 percent of the amount of water used per person in the rest of the Middle East and northern Africa, which is 1,250 cubic meters.

Such a small amount of water allowed per Yemeni represents a tiny amount compared to the world average per person of 7,500 cubic meters. Yemen is one of the ten poorest countries which suffer from water shortages, according to the FAO report. About 4 million hectares, 7 percent, of Yemeni lands can be cultivated with various crops.

However, the severe shortage of water in Yemen badly affects agricultural production, so in reality less than 2 million hectares, about 3 percent, of these suitable lands are cultivated.

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